Friday, 24 April 2015

So this week we have been previewing our new colours in Vivacious and Gleem on Facebook and Instagram.

We decided to choose colours a little different to the current palette, but that would work perfectly for stripes contrasted with the brighter colours, and also add a softer more subtle dimension. I am so pleased with how the colours came out, its always hard when you are not dyeing yourself to make sure they are as nice as you would want them to be. This process was a little agonising for me, I went through rather alot of yarn getting the colours right. Once I had perfected the recipes and timings, the yarn went off to the dyers for them to match. When I got the trial samples back in the post I was ecstatic, they did such a beautiful job, and the colours were perfect.

So... I present to you a round up of this weeks previews the new 6 colours of Vivacious and Gleem!

We started with the only new bright addition, which went down a storm Crocus, if you know tweed imps, our most popular colour, the best way to describe it is a pink version of this, its has pinks purples and soft greens in it, I am not a pink person, but I LOVE IT.

Next up we have Pebble Beach, I love this so so much, its something a little more subtle, here we venture into grey territory.
Pebble Beach was one of my most requested hand dyed colours and so it was a no
brainer to add this to the palette. Pebble beach is a soft mixture of
sea foam blue and drift wood on a pebbly beach:

For the next two I wanted proper greys, but there are many types of grey, and I think that sometimes different people suit different shades, so I produced 2, a cool and a warm, both would work great with stripes with other colours etc as well.

This photo using the gleem shows best the difference in the two colours:

Elly is wearing Hermes Baby from the Vivacious collection in Dove stone. Damn I love that hat!

Ok, so up next we have moving on from the grey, a green grey, this is called Lundy Island because it reminded me of the green rocks and landscape of Lundy Island. Stunning!

Again the difference in the different yarns always makes me happy, this colour in the Gleem is almost ethereal in nature, its the sort of colour I would call magic, because I can't quite grasp it and yet its mesmerising. We have a wonderful had fora future collection knitted in the DK in this colour and despite being slightly multi coloured, the cables pop like crazy.

Next up, is probably my favourite, its Verdigris, this colour just makes me think of the green bloom that occurs on Copper, its rich, dark and has a metallic quality. The fact I managed to get this colour in, after alot of practising makes me so so happy, I was worried we couldn't replicate it.

So the following shops have pre-ordered the new colours and will be stocking them:

Saturday, 11 April 2015

We LOVED seeing the wonderful Yolks sweaters you made for the Fyberspates Yolks competition! There were some absolutely brilliant creative takes on the patterns, and our favourites and winners are as follows:

For the Instagram winner Minaknits made a super sweet sweater, plus we love the Easter themed Photo!!

Our twitter winner is without a doubt Miranda Shelley with her wonderful beaded Yolk sweater, I might just be making one of these!

For our facebook winner, I think it has to be Tina, she made a few sweaters, but I love the bow on this one, is so cute!

Finally and I think probably the most creative sweater is this one, this was knitted by Kazafly on Ravelry, and its her Captains Jacket:

Isn't this just brilliant??

If you would like the pattern for our Yolks egg cosies, you can download it for free here and we hope it will give you something to knit for your scraps of 4ply that makes your breakfast table looks fun and whimsical.

For more competitions, fun and find out what we are up to you can like & follow us on
Facebook here
Follow our shenanigans on Instagram here
On twitter here

Friday, 3 April 2015

We've all done it at some point; consumed with yarn fumes, we spot the most incredible skein of hand painted/hand dyed yarn at a show or in a shop, and we just can't resist. On one hand the skein is a piece of art in itself, on the other hand, the possibilities run through your head at a thousand thoughts a second. There is no option other than to buy it and take it home, it would literally be a crime to leave it on the shelf unappreciated!

Once its home, you put in your very favourite stash place, because lets face it, its risen to the top of the pile of the most coveted yarns in your stash.... (for now... until the next one!). We start to think about what it's going to be, we imagine it as a pair of socks... nah, its too nice for that, a shawl... well perhaps, but the colours might get lost on any lace patterning. That's where Louise comes in of Inspiration Knits, she has a talent and an eye (yes, she LOVES a pretty skein of yarn does Louise) for creating patterns that work super well with hand painted yarns, she uses simple stitch patterns and graceful shapes which allow the yarn to come to life and get the best out of your super special skein (or two) of yarn.

Her new collection Palette contains 2 patterns, Painted and Fresco, both perfect for using your special hand paints on.

Painted is perfect for that one skein of treasure you have, and Fresco is wonderful if you just happened to be tempted by those two skeins ;)

This is shown in our very own Vivacious 4ply, in Peacock, one of our more variegated colours in this range, as you can see the stitch patterns breaks up the colour changes really nicely:

Louise is hosting a KAL (knit along) here for this collection... I'm just off to stash dive right now, I know just the perfect skein...... ;)